


Anything But

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Cooking, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Love, M/M, Nigella Lawson Can't Tell Bucky Barnes What To Do, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Schmoop, Steve Rogers Feels, Ticklish Boys, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 19:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2633012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’d be funny, really, if it weren’t so damned <i>tragic</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything But

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strangephenomena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangephenomena/gifts).



> [strangephenomena](http://archiveofourown.org/users/strangephenomena/) asked for short, domestic fluff as something of a pick-me-up; I did my best to oblige.
> 
> All the love to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad/) for looking it over <3

It’d be funny, really, if it weren’t just a touch too tragic.

Because the fact is: Steve has every reason to freeze when he does; to pull back, and think he needs to apologize when he brushes the skin, when he presses in close, when he leans just so—when his body or his breath or his hands on Bucky’s waist slink around and settle warm, _safe_ , and Bucky flinches; Steve has every reason to draw back, to feel that a line’s been crossed and a wrong’s been done even though it’s not Steve’s fault, it’s not his line, it’s not _him_ , there’s still every reason.

Because for a long time—for too fucking _long_ —that’d been true.

It had been weeks, in the beginning, before Bucky could curb the violence, the instinct written on his bones now, like a brand: attack, but even deeper—defend. Protect.

It’d been weeks before he stopped lashing out, before he could train his body to simply stop, and then to hold, and then to brace still and think, to consider—it tooks weeks before he could coax his own muscles back to remembering _who_ it was he was meant to be protecting, always; it’d taken a bruised neck and a near-cracked clavicle before he’d managed to convince his limbs of what his brain was slowly grasping: Steve is the priority. Steve is the mission. Steve is what matters. 

Always. Before anything else.

It takes months still, from there, before Bucky can more than just tolerate human touch in his own mind, regardless of the way that his body tenses. He learns to focus on the thoughts, first—reminds himself that Steve is a friend, Steve is not a threat, not to him; he reminds himself that Steve is tucked deep in what’s left of the heart of him, that Steve might be all that’s _left_ inside his chest, that Steve’s the goddamned sun and Bucky doesn’t ever have to fear him; doesn’t ever have to deny the pull.

Not now. Not anymore.

But he manages. He relearns what it means to not just think of love but to feel it, to recognize it in a touch and know what it is, what it means: he remembers how Steve’s hands were thinner, sure, more delicate but no less broad, no less _strong_ , somehow—artist’s fingers, the touch of creation. Perfection.

_His Steve._

And Bucky remembers—slowly, but sure: remembers hands on a shuddering chest and wrists with a stumbling pulse; he remembers Steve pressed up against him for warmth, for need— the scent of him, the give of Steve’s body, the sound of his breath when it’s strained, when he’s happy, when he’s unsure; the way his eyes move, the width of his pupils as they give away his fucking _soul_ : Bucky remembers.

And maybe it’s not quick enough, maybe Bucky hates how long it takes, how much hurt’s sprinkled in throughout the middle, but eventually, _eventually_ : where his mind learns to grasp, to hold, his body comes to follow suit.

And the fact that it happens at _all_ is a goddamned _miracle_.

It’s shocking enough that Bucky stills, the first time he realizes—he goes absolutely motionless as he registers _want_ and _pleasure_ and _comfort_ and _home_ as it radiates all the way to his fingertips, as it heats and settles and burrows and _holds_ where Steve brushes against him. And it kills him, a little, when Steve’s face falls, and he draws back, says “Sorry” like it’s a fucking crime—it kills Bucky in so many little ways that it nearly adds up to a death in itself, except it can’t, for as much as it hurt; except that it’s beautiful, too.

Bucky focuses on the way Steve’s touch feels on him, without a hint of hesitation, without an undertone of terror that he’ll snap, that he’ll hurt—he basks in it, and it’s beautiful: it’s the sun. 

It’s _Steve_.

And this, Bucky thinks, is where they’d been headed before; this is where they were meant to land: in a place where home meant Steve’s hand on Bucky’s skin. Where the world made sense, and these truths didn’t waver.

So: once the novelty wears off, and he’s calm, he’s molten under the rush that is Steve’s hands in passing, Steve’s hand on his hip—thoughtless and automatic and absolutely _right_ —once the shock wears off, the thrill remains, the giddiness that hypes his pulse and shivers through his frame. And he’s waiting for Steve to notice; Bucky wants Steve to see, to realize it and to meet Bucky’s eyes with the shine, the openness, the joy that Bucky’s been craving for so long, _too long_ —and there are a hundred chances, a hundred places where Steve could see it, where Steve touches and Bucky basks in it: but where Bucky’d thought that maybe it was Steve keeping away, making a point not to touch, slipping up and seeing the mistake in Bucky’s reaction, the way he recoiled, he realizes that was wrong, that was so fucking wrong: Steve was never able to keep his hands away, his touch removed.

It was only the hurt he thought he was causing, it was only seeing harm in Bucky’s stance, in Bucky’s body—that was what pulled him away. That was what caused the two-fold agony in Steve’s eyes: not being free to touch, to show affection, to press love with skin on skin, and then right alongside—not being able to protect from the cold.

Fuck, but Bucky loves this stupid moron with everything he’s got—everything and more.

That said, though: Bucky’s about ready to forgo the surprise and skip straight to the rapture, to grab Steve and pull him in and kiss him breathless as he presses their bodies together from thighs to chest—he’s perilously close to his breaking point, when it happens: the thing that would be funny.

If it weren’t so goddamn _tragic_.

Bucky’s cooking. That was always his job, before—the standing and the heat tended to get to Steve, whether or not he liked to admit it. Cooking in the 21st century isn’t much different, really, save that there is so much more variety, plus the fact that Steve _could_ do it just fine, if he wanted to—he says he likes how relaxed Bucky seems in the kitchen, doesn’t want to intrude upon that, but Bucky’s pretty damn sure that’s a convenient lie to cover Steve’s nagging tendency to burn shit in the toaster so bad that no one trusts him with the stovetop.

But it’d served as a useful exercise, at first: instructions, commands, orders but not given, not immediate. Static. The recipes were useful like that; they helped him segue toward a new understanding of himself, of the world: of yes and no and _there is no whole milk here and I will use the two-percent if I fucking want to, Nigella, you don’t own me_.

That recipe had turned out pretty fucking lacklustre, though. He’d apologized to Nigella’s photo on the cookbook, after.

It had become a thing, though, over time. Something he actually did enjoy. Something that helped him make choices, assert agency, temper strategy and observation behind a scope and translate it to life, to a pattern of his breathing, a rhythm to his pulse that was variable, that was touched by his surroundings, that was steeped in feeling and what it means to be human, to be alive. It helped him work toward a larger goal; something that facilitated the preparation of dinners and desserts that made Steve smile when he saw them, as he watched Bucky work, when he put them in his mouth and moaned in pleasure because Bucky’d done it right, or Bucky’d learned enough to know how to take the instructions and do it _better_.

So: Bucky is cooking, when it happens. It’s just a thing.

And Steve comes in, nosy fucker that he is—still dripping from the shower, _gorgeous_ fucker that he is—and Bucky doesn’t flinch, doesn’t do anything but feel out the way his own lips curl at the way Steve leans over his shoulder—magnetized, somehow, to Bucky where he stands, and Bucky knows that feeling, remembers it now, and there’s something infinitely satisfying in thinking that Steve never shook it, that it was always there, that it’s still something that defines their being, the way they move in tandem, in orbit; Steve peeks into the pan on the stove where Bucky’s making stock, and it’s not even a new thing, really, when Steve’s hands go, thoughtless and practiced and warm, around Bucky’s waist.

It’s not a new thing.

So Bucky doesn’t actually know what _about_ it is different, what changes: whether it’s the angle, or the way his shirt rides up just a little, the way there’s skin exposed and the hem of the fabric sits funny—or maybe it’s the temperature of Steve’s skin from the shower, the slight slickness left to the touch, the lingering moisture: whatever. Bucky doesn’t know.

All he knows is that he stills; that he flinches.

All he knows is that Steve jumps back, guilty and shamefaced and heartbroken in that moment and Bucky doesn’t even have to turn to see his face to know it, doesn’t have to strain to hear the horror, the devastation in the voice that says, “Fuck, Bucky, I’m sorry, Jesus, I…”

And Bucky’s breath catches, because it would be funny; because for all that Bucky’d been waiting for Steve to notice, to say something about how it was okay, now, how Bucky’d made progress, how Bucky _ached_ for Steve’s fucking _touch_ every minute of every goddamned day—because even if he hadn’t said anything, there was still a part of Steve that knew it, that had recognized and seen because Steve’s too devastated, here and now, to not have had a small voice, deep down, hoping they were past this, hoping they’d made it beyond this particular hurdle. 

And they have. For fuck’s sake: they have.

Which is why, for all that it’s still a little tragic, Bucky lets himself laugh: because he hadn’t known.

He hadn’t known, before this moment, that after everything—all the hurt and the remaking and unraveling and the pain; all that he is and isn’t the man that he was, or could be: Bucky hadn’t know that he was—right above the hipbone on his left—still ticklish.

Just there; like _always_.

And Steve’s staring at him, slack-jawed and uncomprehending, and Bucky can’t help himself; he can’t, now when it feels this good, not when it shakes with the promise of spring after winter, not when it gleams like light in the dark—he can’t.

He _won’t_.

“Did it stay the same with you, too?” Bucky asks, and reaches, too quick for Steve to stop him, to pinch Steve right between the last of his ribs.

He gets a squawk in response, and a leap backward that nearly knocks over the table, and Bucky cackles: open and raucous and full.

It takes Steve a minute, to put it together. It takes him a minute, but when it dawns—fuck.

_Fuck_ , but it’s blinding.

And Bucky just laughs, and it’s better than crying; and Steve joins him, and Bucky leans in to taste it, to lick bliss from that mouth and taste how it’s sweet, because this, them, now, _finally_ —

It is _anything_ but tragic.

**Author's Note:**

> On [tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com), where I've been known to take prompts like this one ;)


End file.
